Unfold
by x.seng.x
Summary: Lucy tolerated Natsu's antics and thoughtless nature of her personal space through gnashing teeth on a near daily basis. Please read author's note!
1. 01

Lucy tolerated Natsu's antics and thoughtless nature of her personal space through gnashing teeth on a near daily basis. Natsu was Natsu—sometimes ignorant, sometimes naive, but mostly her dear friend.

She had once doubted her capability to adapt to her team's bizarre habits when invading her home; however, that mindset wore off quick the more they came and went. To withstand the recklessness at the guild was enough for her, and, as much as she loved her companions, it could become draining at times. Her apartment was meant to be a sanctuary, but she supposed it was too much to ask, especially with much consideration of who her team was. It had taken months before Lucy began to build trust and a bond with them to accept the quadruplets' barraging her haven. So in spite of their outlandish habits, which included eating her food, rummaging through her belongings, and taking residence of her bed whether she is sleeping in it or not, they were welcomed nonetheless.

Lucy had made a sarcastic quip in the past, saying they might as well invest in a home for them all, to which the antithetical elemental mages vehemently opposed of, earning them a severe restraint by the nape from Erza. She commented it wouldn't be such a terrible consideration, but Lucy waved it off as a joke, not wanting to endure their antics more than she already had to. Even with their individual rooms she knew they wouldn't be able to steer clear of her and anything belonging to her for so long. One way or another, she magnetized them unwittingly.

Speaking of her home, a few days ago her team encroached her apartment after celebrating a successful mission at the guild. That night consisted of a couple bottles of whisky and a wild feast. On her way to excuse herself for the night, a drunk Natsu intervened her leaving by latching onto her. Erza promptly took hold of the slurring dragon slayer at her pleading. Not a moment later, Gray had stumbled his way after them and proceeded to barrel into Lucy. He lost ability to properly walk after the collision, and it was not an easy feat to half support, half drag a 5'11" man weighing at 100-something pounds. Soon, the five made way to their favorite apartment, poor Lucy having trouble supporting the ice mage who couldn't put one foot in front of the other.

With their frequent visits, Lucy had purchased a futon for such cases. That allowed a company of two while the couch was open for one, and then she usually shared her bed with another. The following morning, she recognized Natsu and Erza taking advantage of the futon with Happy somewhere in between the tangled comforters and pillows, Wendy curled up on the couch with Carla in her arms, and Gray half on top of her on the bed.

It hadn't been her first time sleeping with either of her boys. She had slept in between them on numerous accounts during missions and even out of missions, and at that point she had discovered their sleeping quirks to a fault. Guilty as pleaded, she actually invited them to bed based on the weather. How the mighty have fallen. The past couple weeks had been brutal since summer's unforgiving homecoming, thus Gray was her consistent bed mate, but she didn't expect to wake up pinned useless underneath him. He usually kept to his side with remarkable control. Sleep with them at her side with a respectable distance she'd done before, sleep with them draped atop her like a familiar lover she'd never asked for.

Startled at this revelation, Lucy tried to escape her sleeping companion. The more she struggled, the more Gray would slip over the edge. In a desperate act to save him the kiss with the floor, she attempted to haul him up, only to have his heavy body outweigh her efforts, and they both plummeted. A painful fall and awkward positioning later, the collision alerted the others awake, and it was chaos after. Natsu just about busted his lungs laughing at their predicament. An unspeakably irate Gray set her aside with a gentle push before ensuing a brawl by lunging at Natsu. Erza intervened just as it was getting heated, no pun intended. Gray didn't take kindly to his frenemy gloating about taking a win for that.

That had been three days ago, three days of enduring the overwhelming, vengeful-bent mind of a certain water mage all because Natsu decided to announce to the world about their sleeping arrangements after engaging in a dispute with Gray, the latter gaining an advantage, thus compelling the former to play dirty. Lucy had never seen the woman move so fast before, arm coiled with a typhoon ready to slay her dubbed love rival. Her ass was still suffering the aftermath of a good whipping Juvia managed to land.

"The usual?" Mira blessed her with a sympathetic smile, taking note of the brooding celestial mage ensnared by her less than pleasant thoughts.

"Spike it just a hint?" A buzz sounded nice right now, something to distract her from the bruise that not even the bar stool cushion could assuage. If only her past-self could see her now; drinking during the middle of the day and willingly sleeping with men! Although, to give her credit, sharing a bed with her boys had taken a lot longer to get used to. Granted, she had no habits like Cana, Lucy had come a long way, and the undertones of her behavior were tainted by none other than her guild, and she would never change it for the world.

"Anything for you," the charismatic barmaid cooed, and with that she set about to blend a strawberry concoction with a modest splash of rum.

"You're the best, Mira," Lucy praised as soon as she had took a deep sip of her go-to drink, slowly feeling the effects of the rum warming her system. What the barmaid remarked next made Lucy swallow too fast and choke.

"Still denying the fact of sharing a bed with Gray?" Her eyes gleamed wickedly, hoping to wrangle an answer from her blonde friend.

Lucy wanted to wrench that cheekiness off and lock it in a box before tossing it over the ends of the earth. She bemoaned as the other laughed. Mira was teasing, of course, accepting that nothing happened after Lucy had fervently shot down all the fantasies conjuring up within her rather perverse mind. That didn't stop her from taunting Lucy, though.

Before Lucy could refute, someone unceremoniously plunked into the stool to her right. She tore her attention away from swirling the thick, carnation pink remedy with her straw to see who had joined their company.

The newcomer grunted, "Mira, I doubt the more you ask, the likelier the chances are you'll get the answer you want," and dove his fingers into the tousled ink of his hair, briefly giving show of the distinctive scar above his brow she knew so well like a landmark.

"Gray!" Lucy swatted his arm in horror, to which he raised a fierce brow at her in levity. "Don't say it like that; you'll give her hopes that something did happen, which nothing did," she seethed, dowsing the flame building within the sapphire eyes of the take-over mage.

"Oh, boo." Her plastic disappointment was waved away by the other two.

Gray only offered a crook of his lips, midnight eyes scintillating with mischief as he peered at Lucy from beneath his lashes. She rolled her eyes at his smoldering gaze Juvia would kill for, sneering at him when he dared to pat her honey crown. Gray gave a final, endearing ruffle before leaving her be, knowing well she didn't hate it but would never admit it, and just between him and no one in particular, he rather enjoyed spoiling her with such affections once in a while.

Shifting to the barmaid, he asked, "Ale, please?"

Mira intently noticed the way Gray melted into his seat, molding with it and casually extending his arm out to encase the back of Lucy's own stool. His movements were so natural, it was as if he had done it time and time again, although she knew that wasn't the case. Her attention locked onto the way he draped his hand over the stool's back by his wrist. His calloused fingers flexed once when whisking against the veil of Lucy's hair. She thought he might brush the honey strands to feel them again, but they sunk pressure into the leather shelled back and stilled, as if he were trying to stave off the urge rub her hair between his fingers, as if he were restraining himself. Interesting.

"Mira?" Lucy pinched her brows in concern at the woman who seemed to be in an uncharacteristic daze.

The said barmaid lifted her eyes to latch onto cognac ones and smiled. With a quick apology, she turned to fill a glass of ale. Lucy sliced her gaze to find that Gray also sought out her own. They shared a perplexed glance.

"What was that about?" Lucy whispered.

His shoulder rose in a lazy shrug and fell slack, while his hand circled one of the many buttons of his shirt, which was already unclasped by the first two. "No idea. Never seen her space out like that before."

Lucy could say much the same, downing more of her smoothie and humming at the pleasant tingles simmering just beneath her skin. Mira returned only to give her attention to other guild members hailing for her, leaving the pair alone again. Lucy swore she saw her sapphire eyes glimmer with mischief before she was gone with a flutter of her hair and dress.

"So I heard Juvia was giving you a hard time." He turned that slanted smirk to his friend again. The urge to laugh at her twisted face was easy to overcome with a quick bite to his tongue.

He knew exactly what his poor friend had undergone, and if her stormy look and the still vindictive water mage lurking somewhere was anything to consider, he doubted it was rainbows and sunshine for the victim. He hadn't cared about Natsu's bait attempt to embarrass him by calling him out for sleeping in the same bed as Lucy, because nothing had happened and he frankly didn't give two shits if others knew. There was no reason to be ashamed, plus the guild wasn't one for rumors or judgement. Everyone had their privacy, but they were a big family in the end, a family who trusted each other with a deep level of openness and understanding. Although, Gray did feel a bit guilty when he didn't deny such an accusation and instead boasted about it, especially when his admirer was in hearing range.

He remembered saying something along the lines of, "At least Lucy wanted me to sleep with her," and then proceeded to tear through Natsu's worth of being a sleeping partner, which was a strike at his worth of being a man in general. That was on him and his immature nature to rise up against Natsu's challengings (so, yes, he did give into the bait in a way). At that moment, he knew the murderous intent vining up everyone's nape was directed to none other than the celestial mage caught in the middle of everything. If Lucy survived the assault, she would make sure he most certainly did not survive her plan for retribution.

He might have taken it a bit too far. The guild could do nothing but send their sympathies, wincing at the razor crack in the air and a keening yelp that followed after. No one had any intentions of crossing paths with the scorning woman. Gray knew Lucy could be left to her own devices when handling Juvia, knowing no real harm would ever be done (at least he assumed not), but this time that might have been impossible without an intervention. He had managed to soothe the raging woman as the other fled out of the vicinity to nurse her glowing rump.

"That's a severe understatement," Lucy groused, pushing away her cleaned glass and huffing with all the intentions to make it known it wasn't a merry experience and to lean back into her stool.

He quickly shifted his arm to grip the outer ledge so that it wouldn't hinder the woman and chuckled, the sonorous chortle building from the back of his rich throat and echoing behind his enclosed lips.

"Sorry?" he offered, pressing the rim of his glass to his lips pulled into a not-so-sorry crook.

She narrowed her eyes at his insincerity. "Say sorry to my ass, because Juvia sure wasn't merciful when giving me a whipping. I still can't sit without feeling the bruise." As if to further validate her statement, she fidgeted, the leather protesting against her bare thighs, and rubbed a hand against her hip.

Gray boldly cracked with a feral grin and fierce eyes, "It was kind of sexy, if you ask me. I could feel the guild heating up."

"My ass sure was hot after that hit! You're despicable, Fullbuster," she hissed, failing to suppress the roses blooming across her cheeks at the unusual remark and devilish yet attractive look her friend, for gods' sake, sent her.

Raising a palm that began to coat over with a thin bedding of ice, he lifted a brow and suggested, "Need me to help you ice the sore?"

That promptly earned him a sharp whopping to his taut stomach that was now naked beneath his open button up, and he couldn't help but laugh.

Alarmed at the skin-to-skin collision, Lucy harshly whipped her head to see why that was the case. "You haven't even been in my company for ten minutes and you're already stripping," she indicated with a flick to the open flap, but more so to change the subject because her insides were strangely simmering from his playfully naughty comments.

He dropped his eyes down to see she was, indeed, correct but made no gesture to save himself the embarrassment, or lack thereof. "Ah, my bad. Care to button it up for me?" He let his tongue loll out of his mouth, nothing but an impassive look to display, as if he wasn't highly amused by this.

Face bursting with color, as if it wasn't already so, Lucy gave a shrill cry at his second remark in a row, hitting him a third time, only earning another hearty laugh. He finally appeased her by closing his shirt.

"If I get another whipping from Juvia, I'm coming after you, and it won't look pretty."

"Shall I expect the same kinky punishment?"

"Gray, I swear!" But she was having difficulty hiding her laughter, not only because it was working to cheer her up, but because he was jokingly flirting with her and it was making her giddy.

She had never expected that from him, especially him, so it was different. She would admit that it was strange and rather out of character for her friend, so much so that she was tempted to ask who he was and what he had done with the real Gray. But she couldn't lie; she didn't dislike it. Besides, it wasn't everyday that a hunk (yes, she admitted he was attractive) flirted with her, even if said hunk was her close friend who had a love-sick Juvia on his heels.

Gray claimed the spine of her stool again with his arm, to which Lucy did notice this time around but thought nothing of it since he wasn't touching her. If contact was made, it wasn't anything she was new to anyhow.

"Alright, alright, I'll stop...for now." At his last remark, the ice mage winked at her.

The blonde woman harrumphed, resisting the urge to hit him again and smile. Not wanting to give him the pleasure of her amusement, she droned, "I think I feel the vengeful presence of our water mage getting closer. Quick, shoo." She wasn't impressed by his false hurt.

"Ouch." Gray feigned a wince, clutching at his chest, and spewing forth as much sarcasm into the single exclamation as he could.

"Hahaha," was her blank reply. "Seriously, I'm not looking forward to avoiding the guild all because of a little misunderstanding. You know I have rent to pay."

"Maybe we really should invest in a home for us all."

"That was a joke! Besides, do you know how much worse that would make my situation?"

"I'm assuming you don't just mean Juvia?" He circled the rim of his glass with a finger.

"I see you and Natsu enough," she deadpanned, "I really don't need that twenty-four hours."

Gray knew she wasn't coming off as harsh as she'd like. True, she was serious to an extent, but she had grown so used to their company that if they all did end up living together she wouldn't care. It wasn't as if she would do anything to stop them anyway, not that he would rub that fact into her face if he wanted to steer safe from another hit. Erza's strength was beginning to influence Lucy's, he duly noted.

"Nah, we like your apartment just the way it is," he said into his glass, his voice echoing from the cylinder barrier and his breath fogging it up.

Lucy snorted. "No joke; you're all like dogs scenting your territory." That painted an interesting picture in her head, imagining her team looking identical to Plue but with their characterizing hair to tell them apart.

Gray saw her folding her lips inward, as if holding back laughter, rousing his curiosity at the sudden change of mood. Knowing she wouldn't spill, he let it slide, choosing to go along with the conversation instead.

"Don't let Happy or Carla catch you saying that," he murmured with a quick jab at her side. He practically marveled at the way his finger sunk into the tender skin of her curves, quite enjoying the sensation.

One thing he had learned over the years was that Lucy was ticklish. Extremely ticklish. Her body was mapped out with hot and cold marks, hot being the most likely to elicit squealing or have the woman fold within herself and possibly send her bolting across the room in 0.2 seconds, and cold being least likely to get a rise, maybe a flinch if she was caught unawares but nothing like the dubbed erogenous areas would produce. If touched just the right way, the woman was helpless when responding, only fueling her culprit to do more for the sake of sadistic entertainment. And, boy, did Gray have a sadistic streak when it came to her.

As predicted, Lucy jolted, spine bowing at the unexpected dig. A weak and startled whine escaped from her lips, much to Gray's impish amusement. She coiled away, tightening her muscles, and guarding her most sensitive areas. He laughed at her vicious scowl, knowing she was having trouble restraining herself from punching him. He did deserve it from how many times he had messed with her in a span of minutes.

With arms suspended up in surrender, he admitted, "Okay, guilty. Have at me." He tapped his chest once, giving her full leverage to hit him as she pleased.

Lucy narrowed her eyes at him for a long moment, waiting for him to waver under her scrutinizing glare. Deciding he couldn't mean anymore harm than he had already dished out, which she wondered if she was naive enough to believe, she reached where he indicated. Once her knuckles chafed the worn cotton of his shirt, feeling the heat of his body caressing her skin, she pressed her fist against his chest. It wasn't hard enough to cause pain or even discomfort, but it was firm enough to push him into his stool where the back met the groves of his spine. Lucy heard him grunt just a whisper from the solid pressure and connected eyes with him. He offered a slight smirk, contrasting the sweet twist of her frowning lips.

"You're lucky I'm too sore to Lucy-Kick you." Mirth glazed over her half-hearted threat.

"Yeah, yeah." Gray tenderly shackled her much daintier wrist in his large hand and pressed the roughed pad of his thumb onto her pulse, slowly sliding up to press into her soft palm. He gauged the way puzzlement shifted her feminine features at his unfamiliar action, but it didn't alarm her enough to make her withdraw from the contact. Encouraged, the ice mage removed her hand from him and held on for a passing moment, neither exchanging a thought.

"Nothing happened, you say?"

Lucy yelped at the sudden invasion of Mira who severed through the moment. Clutching her thrashing heart with her spare hand, the blonde woman attempted to snatch her composure, making no move to free her captured limb. Gray, on the contrary, hardly indicated he was as startled as his companion, just tossing the barmaid an impassive look.

"Mira, don't do that to my heart!"

"Oh, my bad. I'll leave that job to Gray," she cooed, sending an all knowing wink at the man who, in turn, decided not to say anything.

Lucy wrestled her wrist free with little effort, crossed her arms and refused to give into the remark. Mira didn't bother to hide her disappointment. The celestial mage suspected that Mira wouldn't let this situation go. Suddenly this day became much more longer. She was just awaiting the inevitable arrival of Juvia to hound on her to make it even better.

"Still need me to say sorry to your ass?" Gray asked.

The question conjured a comical thought, and Lucy shook in silent laughter, not caring Mira was making eyes their way. This time she did drive her fist to his heart hard enough he deliberately toppled out of the chair and began to dramatize withering in pain while his friend continued laughing to tears. She would admit he was pretty good at cheering her up, not that he needed to know that.


	2. Author's Note

Long story short: I deleted the email associated with this account, and while that in no way affects how I can publish/update, I would rather be linked through an existing e-mail, thank you very much. You will find a link to my new account on my profile. If that fails (because we all know how finicky this website can be), you can easily find me under the pen name Althea S. Hart. I will be republishing a revamped version of _Unfold_ under a slightly tweaked title, so do yourself a favor and read it again or you might grow a little confused.

Thank you for those who have been patient and are still wishing for an update. I truly don't deserve your support. I will try my best, key word being _try_...


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